All posts tagged Municipal Corporation of Delhi

India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party retained control of Delhi’s municipal body, a blow to the ruling Congress party, which recently suffered electoral defeats in several Indian states.

This was the first time elections took place in the Indian capital since the Municipal Corporation of Delhi was split into three separate electoral areas. Results released Tuesday showed that the BJP secured a majority of seats in all three areas, winning 62 seats in North Delhi, 46 seats in South Delhi and 40 seats in East Delhi. The Congress party won 28, 29 and 14 seats in these areas, respectively. Smaller parties won 14, 29 and 10 seats in each. Read More »

In a swerve from norm, officials in charge of government departments now want to hear from the “aam aadmi.”

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The Road Transport and Highway Ministry is hoping it will receive feedback from the public through a presence on social media sites.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, headed by the newly appointed C.P. Joshi, are keen to use social-networking sites as a way to interact and get feedback on the department’s initiatives.

“The use of social networking sites for this purpose is a very good option. It’ll help reach out to users than authorities, who depend on engineers to report about damages and deficiences,” the Times of India on Thursday quoted him as saying. Read More »

Delhi’s Facebook users are greeting Delhi’s Municipal Corporation on Facebook with complaints and some welcome messages as well. The MCD joined the social networking site in December but officially launched the site this afternoon. Its page has received likes by close to 400 Facebook users so far.

“I am happy to sign in for the MCD’s Facebook page,” wrote agency Commissioner K.S. Mehra Wednesday afternoon. “The problems and suggestions highlighted out by citizens will receive prompt attention. Read More »

Barely a fortnight after the Commonwealth Games ended, officials in India’s capital are once again scrambling to spruce up the city, this time to welcome U.S. President Barack Obama who arrives in New Delhi Nov. 7.

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Barely a fortnight after the Commonwealth Games ended, officials in India’s capital are once again scrambling to spruce up the city, this time to welcome U.S. President Barack Obama.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the city’s main public works agency, has instructed its officials to ensure the capital remains clean and beautiful.

“The capital is getting another facelift,” Deep Mathur, the spokesman of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi told India Real Time Wednesday. Read More »

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the city’s local government, had plans to build 216 fancy toilets, with piped music, on-site sewage treatment and shoe shine machines. Revenue for maintenance was to come from renting overhead space to well-known fast-food or coffee chains.

“It has to be maintained on such a basis that you can sit on top and eat there,” said Amiya Chandra, the municipal officer supervising the project, “It was a beautiful concept.”

Construction sites generally make for good mosquito breeding grounds because rubble and debris make it easy for water to collect.

Two weeks ago Indian Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said Commonwealth Games construction was at least partly to blame for the spike in mosquitoes and dengue cases in the capital this year.

Vinod Kumar Monga, the municipal health official in charge of a task force that’s fighting dengue, backs that view, putting it as his “number three” reason for the jump this year after an anticipated cyclical upswing on the bug population and heavy rains. Read More »

Ahead of the Commonwealth Games in October, New Delhi is building a series of public toilets that look from the outside as if they were inspired by the city’s medieval monuments, with their red stone cladding and arched doorways.

They may not do away with the menace of public urinating—that would require toilets interspersed at regular intervals along all city streets. But they’re definitely an improvement from no toilet at all (and from the ones that did exist).

Video reporter Linda Blake took a quick look. Fortunately, from the inside they’re not medieval at all. They’re entirely new and shiny, and can leave your shoes that way too. Watch:

If you see a suave English-speaking bloke on a sophisticated rickshaw lookalike ready to ride you around the city, don’t look around puzzled…you’re still in India.

The national capital is getting ready to roll out battery-operated, eco-friendly rickshaws called E-Ricks — a hybrid service that will be launched by Delhi’s main civic agency, which is promising eventually to replace all the cycle rickshaws in the city.

Touted as a remedy to Delhi’s chronic traffic woes, unremitting pollution and fuel dependence, as well as an escape from backbreaking human toil for rickshaw-wallas, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi plans to put 10 of the vehicles on the roads this month and 4,000 by the time the Commonwealth Games takes place in October. Read More »

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